Combined Unit Plan Assessment and Evaluation - 2007

Unit Name: Earth, Moon and Sun
Author: Derek
Evaluator: Jay

Score summary: 22.5 / 25 pts; SOE Rubric: 0 criteria with <3. Good job!

This assessment is a combination of three different forms. The first is meant to provide feedback on the degree that the unit plan has incorporated the main ideas about science teaching stressed in EDC 430 this semester. The second is the URI School of Education Rubric that is used across all the teaching methods courses to make sure that the Rhode Island Beginning Teacher Standards (RIBTs) are being addressed. The third component is a summary of my feedback for each of your unit plan components. NOTE: All criteria on the SOE Rubric must score a 3 or above in order for you to begin student teaching. Please feel free to revise your unit plan based on this feedback, and send me an email explaining your revisions.

Completeness and Organization

Criteria	Points/Possible	Comments
1. Is the unit plan organized in a way that makes sense?	01/01)
2. Are all the components present? (e.g. Purpose, Concept Map or Outline, 10 Day Lesson Sequence, 3 Long Lessons, Rationale citing how students learn, Assessment strategy.)	10/(12)	Several worksheets described, but not present.
3. Is the writing clear, engaging, proofread, formatted, etc.	01/(01)

Content

Criteria	Points/Possible	Comments
4. Are the standards unpacked to indicate subtopics? Student preconceptions?	1.5/(02)	Few misconceptions cited.
5. Does each lesson include learning performances, i.e. statements about what students will be able to do at the end of the lesson?	02/(02)
6. Do the plans have students doing something every day? Do students experience phenomena related to the topic?	02/(02)
7. Do laboratory activities include sufficient time/instruction for students to do/learn about science practices?	01/(01)

Assessment

Criteria	Points/Possible	Comments
8. Do the long lesson plans include questions that allow for formative assessment?	02/(02)
9. Are students assessed at a variety of cognitive levels?	02/(02)

Overall impression

10. What will students love (or at least enjoy) about this unit? Students will enjoy the labs, and hopefully they will enjoy making their books.

11. What might be added to make this unit more engaging? Spend some time on how scientists use models, and give Ss chances to make predictions based on their models.

---

---

SOE Unit Plan Rubric

Student Name: Derek
Assessor: Jay

---

Score: 4 Evidence/ Comments:

Purpose describes context of this lesson sequence in Astronomy unit.

---

Score: 4 Evidence/ Comments:

Though RIBTS not cited explicitly, they are expressed, along with content standards, within plans.

---

Score: 5 Evidence/ Comments:

Numerous learning opportunities for a variety of learners are described.

---

Score: 3 Evidence/ Comments:

Numerous representations of content are provided, but concise statements of what T will provide and anticipated student representations are not present.

---

Score: 5 Evidence/Comments:

Lessons frequently open by assessing students' prior knowledge.

---

Score 3: Evidence/Comments:

Lessons are developmentally appropriate, but few accommodations are included in the plans.

---

Score: 5 Evidence/Comments:

Students have several opportunities to use information technology as well as laboratory materials.

---

Score: 4 Evidence/Comments:

Several engaging representations are used, e.g. solar system and earth moon system models.

---

Score 5: Evidence/Comments

Lessons require students to construct and reason using scientific models.

---

Score 5: Evidence/Comments:

Numerous assessment strategies are used. Summative assessment with rubric included in unit plan.

---

Score 5: Evidence/Comments:

Organized correctly; typos minimal.

---

Detailed Feedback

Purpose

• Explains context of lessons in seven week astronomy unit.
• Though you clearly explain your content goals, you do not describe what students will be doing or why.
• You should describe the role that inquiry plays in your unit here as well.

Unpacked Standard

• References RI GSEs, but does not cite or link to sources.
• It is not clear that you have researched student misconceptions using the sources linked in URITK.

Concept Map

• Representation is hard to follow, so it might be useful to include a paragraph telling the reader how they are supposed to navigate the map and what each of your ovals represents (e.g. are these concepts, lessons, what?).
• A link back to your unit plan page would be nice.

Lesson Sequence

• Bare bones. Could be improved by providing a one sentence overview of each lesson, possibly from your lesson overview. A table might make it look more like a sequence.

L01 - Solar System

• Why solar system? Why not "Earth Moon Sun System?"
• Your learning performance is vague. "Comprehend" is a synonym for "understand." What will students be able to do at the end of your lesson? For example, will they be able to explain something about the Earth Moon System? My learning performances would include:
  • Work in a group to construct a 2D Earth Moon Sun model.
  • Use a 2D EMS Model to explain the phases of the moon and seasons.
  • Compare a 2D EMS Model with a 3D model.
  • Research characteristics of the EMS system in order to refine a scientific model.
• It is nice to see that you open your lesson with questions and a statement of a daily goal. Will you write this somewhere?
• What S reactions do you expect? I would expect students to show boredom since they think they already know the answers to these basic questions.
• Will you write an opening question on the overhead before class starts?
• Worksheet: Nice that you ask them to make predictions.
• Activity 1: Good that you're going to use Ss answers to gauge misconceptions. Will you walk around to force them to make predictions?
• Activity 2:
  • What misconceptions are you looking for?
  • You've set them up to show a system that can't be drawn! This is a type of discrepant event, don't you think? If no one complains that the task is impossible (due to scale), then you know they do not really understand the ideas you are trying to teach.
  • Will you require specific features/labels on their drawings? If so, which ones?
  • It is a shame that you will not ask each group to share and apply their model. You could ask them how their model explains the seasons.
• Activity 3:
  • Will you have a representation they can take away from your demo to review?
  • I agree that you can return to this model for class discussions.
• Rationale
  • Why is it important to have students make predictions and confront their misunderstandings from a theoretical perspective? Why are you spending time doing a demo instead of having Ss fill out a worksheet?

L02 - Looking at the Difference Between Distances and Sizes of Earth, Moon, and Sun

*Lesson Overview - Scientists often talk about models and their limitations. Do you want students to understand that you are now refining a model by paying attention to scale?
*Learning Performances: See my examples from previous lesson. Be specific and describe what students will be able to do as a result of this lesson.

• Introduction
  • Again, nice opening via questioning, and making connections with previous lesson.
  • Can you bring back demo from yesterday and ask them what model suggests about cause of new moon (e.g. big earth's shadow) Tell them this is actually wrong and today we'll find out why and we'll find out an important feature of scientific models in general (have limitations).
  • The idea here is to (1) activate prior knowledge, (2) have them think about a new situation or question, and (3) point out discrepancy that introduces a "need to know."
• Activity 1 (Day 1)
  • I would break this paragraph into bulleted statements, since paragraphs are harder to read.
  • You should include a scan of your values for these planetary size numbers as well as the speed calculations.
  • You need a plan B in case the field is wet or in use. Is there a long hallway? If so, what changes should you make to your preferred scale factor?
  • How will you wrap up day 1? What will students take away that they can use the next day? How do you want them to record/represent the knowledge shared in class?
• Activity 1 (Day 2)
  • Nice that you reinforce the question "Why?"
• Activity 2 (Day 2)
  • Nice move hiding the Earth. I like it. It would be neat to capture your earth unveiling on video that you could replay. The kids that are marking the ES separation could watch the action the next day.
• Assessing Student Understanding
  • You should write more about what you will ask students to do, what guidance you will give, and how you will assess their work. Students have a difficult time with scale, so you should not underestimate the difficulty they will have applying the idea that "scale is important" to other situations.

L03 - Gravity Lesson

• Instructional Objectives
  • How will students define gravity? mass?
  • "Comprehend" should be changed to "Explain," or some other action.
  • How will students "apply" these ideas?
• Day 1:
  • Will you really just "tell" students these ideas? What terms will you define? You should include the definitions you will use in you plans, since you will need to use the same definitions each period.
  • Will they calculate their weight on the gaseous planets as well?
  • When you have students jump, will they measure their horizontal jump distance or their height?
  • Where is the worksheet for this activity?
  • What do you want them to include in their conclusion? What are they concluding about? You should write your own version of this conclusion so that you can guide them as you walk around.
• Day 2:
  • It will be helpful if you represent your main points in the opening discussion as bullets in your plan.
  • They will write three claims about what? Will they understand what a "claim" and "evidence" are?
  • Do you have a rubric for this conclusion? What should it contain?
  • You should probably wrap up by reviewing what they did and what the main ideas were for the activity.

L04 - Seasons

• Objectives
  • "Comprehend" cannot be assessed, so use another verb.
• Day 1 Activities
  • Nice introduction
  • Write your questions as bullets.
  • Will students write anything during the introduction? If not, then how will you go back to their initial ideas after the lesson?
  • Good that you have them record their demo observations.
  • Will you explain to them why you are using a non-scaled representation to explore the seasons?
• Day 2 Activities
  • You should probably repeat your demo to remind students of what they saw.
  • What should these posters look like? You should draw on at Gliffy and embed it in your lesson plan. How will students represent the orbit location, the tilt of the earth and the directness of the light?

L05 - Moon Reading

• I like the idea of having them read about the moon.
• In class reading is often difficult for students. Did you learn any strategies in EDC 448 to help beyond asking them to highlight important words?
• If students are highlighting the article, will they take their own copies? Why aren't they reading from their text? How long is the reading? If possible, you should attach the packet here.
• Will you have them share their findings to conclude the class? Your objectives call for them to identify and explain.

L05 - Moon Phases

• Your objectives do not sound very ambitious. Aren't your students going to use a model of earth moon system to explain phases? Flesh out what you mean by "explain" to include make a claim and providing evidence and reasoning. You indicate the high level of thinking in the next sentence, so incorporate it in your learning performances.
• Have you seen basket-ball sized styrofoam? The biggest I've seen are a little bigger than softballs.

*Day 1 Intro

• Scientist use models to explore possible solutions. They do not, in general, rely on trial and error.
• I would not tell them about eclipses. After they explore their model, I would ask them about what is seen when the moon is behind the earth. If they say eclipse, then I would ask how often their model predicts an eclipse. If it is 1 / month, then I would say we need to refine our model.
• Why not send them home with challenge of coming up with ways to refine the model to "get rid" of eclipses?
• I like your strategy of returning to the claims and evidence. What will this table look like? You should include this in your lesson.
• Do your students understand why you are asking the to make claims and gather evidence? If not, then you need to explain this at the beginning of the activity on day 1.
• Why not ask them to make a set of predictions that will be confirmed/refuted by the video?
• Assessment: Can they explain to their little siblings why we don't see monthly eclipses?
• Rationale: I agree with your rationale.

L06 - Sun Lesson

• Objectives are a bit... boring, wouldn't you say? What do you want students to do?
• Let me get this straight... we're researching the sun for some aliens?
• URLs on handouts can be hard for students to use because they have to type in the address exactly.
• The lesson you linked to this lesson plan was more completely thought through. You should decide how you will enact this lesson and write a plan that would be usable.
• You should also develop the worksheet you will use.

Assessment

• Nice idea for a summative assessment.

Rationale

• You express several important ideas, e.g. collaboration, learning in sequence, building on prior knowledge, authentic assessment, and the importance of providing students opportunities to express their understandings to each other. Shouldn't you connect these ideas to the different theoretical ideas that you have learned?

---